Damaged Goods
by Mongie
Summary: [Across the Universe] Max is trapped in the hospital, and that isn't the easiest place to keep it all together.


**So I am completely in love with this movie, and just as in love with Max. He was a lot more intriguing to me than Jude. So I hope you enjoy this - I was really experimenting on getting into his mind.**

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Even when he's been shipped back to the States—damaged goods—he still hasn't really escaped the war. It's still there, following him, showing itself in flickers in the corners of his eyes. Dead bodies, bodies with bits missing, the screaming and the blood, and even now he thinks he can taste how it was in the back of his throat. It paints the backs of his eyelids when he tries to sleep, overlays the hospital sounds when he's lying on his back, staring at the ceiling.

He hates it, because it never stops. Even when they take pity on him and give him a too-infrequent dose of morphine, it's there in the back of his mind, waiting to start up again. The periods of unconscious bliss are too short, growing shorter. And he hates it because he never asked for this. He never felt particularly inspired to help his country or the government. He didn't even feel that inspired to do the noble thing for himself—hell, that was what moving to New York had been all about. Being selfish, having fun, living for whatever he wanted in the moment, and he can't do that now. Sometimes he thinks he'll never be able to do that again, that these horrible visions and twitchy feelings will follow him the rest of his life.

It gets a little better when Lucy starts visiting him, but not much. By then the days and nights have lost their meaning, and all that matters is when he's going to get the next hit of morphine, the next break from these horrible thoughts that plague him. How do they expect anyone to get better in these hospitals, when every other day you have a new neighbor because the old one died in the night and there's never quiet, just varying levels of groaning, and there is never, ever as much morphine as you'd need to make everything just _go away_. So when Lucy visits, it's good, because it gives him something to focus on outside of his brain, and she's like a breath of outside air. And he tries to smile and reassure her that he's alright, and getting better, and hadn't he told her that he'd spend most of his time in the army just sitting around and doing nothing? So what if he hadn't meant in a hospital. But sometimes it's hard to focus, especially when she starts talking about protests and movements and how she's trying to stop this war for him. And doesn't she know that the war will never leave him? He's going to be carting it around forever.

The second time she comes, he asks about everyone else, because he does have enough wit and interest left to do that, and he realizes after she leaves the first time just how long he's been gone and how little he knows about what's happened with his friends. When she's silent a moment before answering, a heavy feeling curls in his gut, and when she starts talking he wishes he hadn't asked at all.

Sadie and JoJo split up, and Sadie out on tour. Prudence disappeared again. And Jude…Jude deported, shipped back to Liverpool. Max hadn't realized how much he'd been counting on seeing them all again. He needs to be around them. To get high with Sadie and have her tell him to just relax baby, he was back and in one piece and they should celebrate that. To listen to JoJo play around with his guitar, half asleep and just letting the music carry his mind around. And he definitely needs Jude, needs his best friend, because Jude knows how to adapt. Jude goes with how things are and enjoys the ride. He'd let Max drag him around Princeton and home and then to New York without a murmur, and if there is anyone who could help him get rid of these feelings, he's sure it's Jude. Jude would get him out of the pit of his mind while being steady enough for Max to lean on.

Only Jude's not here, not going to be here, and Lucy is too caught up with why he's in this hospital bed to realize that he _is_ in this hospital bed, and that means there's something wrong with him. So he nods while she talks about the progress they've made towards ending the war, smiles and holds her hand when she needs him to reassure her that he's really alive and there, not dead like her ex-fiancée, and lets her kiss him on the cheek and stroke his hair when she tells him she'll be back next week. When she leaves he curls over on his side and stares emptily across the ward, trying not to notice that the guy next to him has died yet again.

He sinks even more quickly back into depression, hits depression and keeps on going into near delirium. His sister is more interested in protesting for him than talking to him, his friends are gone, and this damn war is never going to get out of his damn head, so what's the point? Unhooking his mind from reality is just easier than dealing with it, and by the time the nurse comes with his morphine he's not sure if she's the normal blonde nurse or if she's somehow been replaced by the prostitute that lived three floors down from them. Either way he stares at her, eyes darting back and forth between her face and the needle sliding into his arm, delivering the jolt of oblivion that he needs more than anything right now.

Strangely, this oblivion doesn't end when it should. Or rather, there's a time when everything is random and disjointed and chaotic, but calm, and then things get less calm and he can feel again, but they don't get any more put together. He can't make sense of anything now, just snatches that he can grab as they whirl by. "Relapse" is one that he grabs, although he doesn't know what he's relapsing to. The people around him keep changing too fast for him to figure out what they're talking about—and the nurse still can't decide if she's harried and blond or buxom and sexy and it hurts his head when she changes her mind while he's looking at her.

Lucy is there a lot too, and she's still talking a lot. Her words slip past his ears too quickly to grasp, but he can see the tears on her face. He tries to let her know that he's alright, just a little lost, because she's his sister and he shouldn't be making her feel bad. But he can't do more than blink at her and sometimes close his hand around hers. It makes her really excited when he does this, but he can't manage it often—his hand doesn't always seem connected like it should. And sometimes he can't even keep a hold of consciousness when she's there, and everything just fades into black for a while.

And sometimes Lucy changes into other people, like the nurse. He knows, somewhere in the back of his head, that they can't be real, because they aren't anywhere near him, but they seem real and that part seems to go away a lot. Sadie's there a couple of times. She croons over him and pets his hair, like she used to do when they'd all end up in a sprawl on the floor, too drunk to even go to their beds. She tells him he needs to get well, because they all need their party boy to come back to them, and who's going to mess up her closet stealing her shirts if he's not there? JoJo appears a time or two also, shaking his head and telling him that's what happened to too many people in the army, and that he'd better get his ass out of this bed, because JoJo was damned if he was going to another funeral. Prudence was even there once, crying. She'd wiped her eyes and declared that "No, she was_ not_ hung up on him, but he was her friend and he shouldn't be like this." Max wasn't sure he believed her about not being hung up on him, but he humored her, because trying to talk to these appearances made them distressed and then they'd insist that no, they were _Lucy._ Which was silly, because he'd know his own sister, wouldn't he?

Jude doesn't come until later, when everyone else has visited a couple of times. Max had been starting to think that he wouldn't come at all, and something in his chest loosens when he sees Jude, because it's really fucking good to see him again. He'd been afraid, privately, that he wouldn't ever see him again. Jude is also clearer than anyone else, a little more in focus, and bits of him aren't fading out all the time. He sits on the side of Max's bed and smiles a little. "Hey mate," he says, and Max tries to smile at him.

"Hey…Jude," he manages to whisper, the words barely a thread of sound. (_No, I'm Lucy, Max. It's me, Lucy. Jude isn't here._)

"You look like shit," Jude offers, and this time Max only nods dumbly. It's true, he does look like hell, but now that Jude says it, it seems like a problem. He should be looking better, not worse, that's what he reads in Jude's voice. He sees Jude visibly put aside his concern, try to be lighter, because Max must be looking more distressed. (_Max, it's okay. You're going to be fine. Just stay with me._) Jude swallows and tries to smile. "And I didn't expect this of you, man."

Max opens his mouth only nothing comes out. He coughs and tries again. "Wha?" (_It's okay, what are you trying to say? Nurse, he's saying something!)_. The noise in the background is persistent, but somehow it's easy to block it out and focus on Jude, because Jude is the clearest thing he's seen in ages.

Jude gestures across him, towards his arm. "This. I know you like to have a good time, but if you're going to go out in a drug-induced haze, couldn't you at least pick something good, not this shite they give you here?" He grins, and it's full of worry, but at the same time it's encouraging.

Max tries to smile back. "I…try." God when did talking start to hurt so much? (_Max, it's okay, you're okay. You don't have to do anything, just be okay. I need you to be okay, do you hear me?)_.

Jude leans forward and grabs a hold of Max's hand. "Well try harder, mate. I told Lucy you'd make it through this, and you don't want me to be a liar, right?"

Max nods again, and then he tries to protest, because he can see Jude is fading away again, like everyone else. But it's too much effort and he blacks out again. The next time he opens his eyes, Lucy is sitting next to his bed, and her fingers are curled around his. Nothing's quite as hazy as it has been—she seems almost…solid. Quite a concept as far as he's concerned.

He must have made a sound or moved, because she looks up at him, and her eyes are red-rimmed. He tries out his voice. "L-lucy?" he croaks.

Her eyes widen. "Max?" she breathes. "Are you really awake? Do you know where you are?"

That's a silly question, he thinks. He's been in the hospital for far too long not to know where he is. "Hospital," he says simply, because his voice doesn't seem to be working right at this moment. Then he's alarmed to see that she's crying.

"Yes," she says, her voice thick. "You had a bad relapse, and you've been delusional for more than a week, and we thought—oh god—you almost didn't make it." She puts her head down by his side, and her shoulder's are shaking.

Dead? He hadn't been almost dead, he'd been right here, talking to people. But he doesn't say this, because he doesn't want to make her cry more. A part of him remembers hearing her crying when he'd been talking to his friends, and he doesn't want it to happen again.

So he just nods when she tells him details, and a month later they release him from the hospital. It had been a long, sobering month as he'd struggled to come to grips with what has happened and where everyone is, but at least those damn visions had mostly gone away. And when they are there, they don't seem as bad, because he can remember his friends better now, and they help. They help a lot.

A couple of weeks after that he's waiting for Jude's ship. It had gotten to the point where the need to see Jude had gotten painful. Memories were good up to a point, but the visions and the nerves were coming back again, and Lucy was back to protesting, Sadie was back but busy with her album, and Prudence was always on Sadie's heels. When Lucy's not protesting, she's brooding, and Max knows that she misses Jude more than she says. She's told him that she and Jude fought, but she won't say much more than that, and it's clear that she misses him too. So Max calls Jude, tells him to come back for both of them, and here he is now, burning his eyes trying to spot Jude at the first possible second.

And when he does see Jude, and he knows Jude has seen him. It's the best possible feeling in the world, and he hardly waits until Jude's approaching the gate before he's launching himself towards his friend. Jude catches him easily, and it's tight and physical and comforting and everything Max needs it to be. He's going to get better, he jokes with Jude about it, and he knows that now that his friend is here to help, it will definitely happen. No more visions, no more nightmares, no more shaking attacks. Well, maybe more, but they're going to get better now, so he can get back to his life again. Jude was back, his best friend was back, his sister would be happier, his other friends were all here. That's all that Max needed. He smiles over at Jude, sitting beside him in the taxi. Things were going to be better.


End file.
